As SF author Robert Heinlein said through one of his characters, "Politics and peristalsis are similar, both in the quality of the outcome and the importance to your well-being and continued existence."
I see a lot of down-vote worthy responses to OP, and more downvotes. But in this case, I honestly don't see it: why is this not a fair question? I mean, in a genuinely neutral sense; isn't he right?
Asking if someone supports politicians that claim to be eco-conscious while raising campaign money, who are almost universally left-leaning, is far from "neutral". There are places on the Internet to espouse political support for either side. This, however, is not one of them.
Someone proposed the rhetorical question of "what politicians do you support" as one of the "ways you can affect climate change". The poster is not saying "You should vote (in a particular way)", nor even generalizing what positions the respective parties take, just that voting affects climate policy, which affects climate. The poster literally only said "the way you vote affects the way climate is handled", and -you- are inferring a bias, and a political motivation, and crying foul.
By that logic, we can't talk about voting being a means to -any- end. "How can we prevent the TPP" "Vote out those in favor of it" "NO NO NO, POLITICAL COMMENTARY, GTFO!"
You can talk about voting out politicians who endorse the TPP, or for that matter who want to wreck encryption and crater the economy, because these things have broad bipartisan support and so the only way to reverse that is to vote out everyone.
Talk of tearing the whole system down or whatever is totally acceptable, even if (or maybe precisely because) it's probably also unrealistic. However once a subject comes up where one group is basically wrong, it becomes a lot more difficult to talk about in a forum like this because some folks actually do have to justify their voting habits in the context of e.g. climate change, instead of all of us just kind of posting at each other "those politicians eh?" all day and getting very little actually done.
When it comes to a lot of tech issues, pretty much everyone in Washington is fucking awful and we can find consensus on that (with a few notable exceptions that show up in every thread to concern troll everyone else - not going to name names). However there is only one party in the US right now that is broadly sticking its fingers in its ears and screaming that climate change isn't happening.
So are you saying that if it's a partisan position we're not allowed to post "voting can change things"; we can only post that if it's a bipartisan position? Because if not, you're in no way addressing the point I was raising.
I'm saying that people get a lot more sensitive about "talking politics" when the positions of the two major parties are in pretty stark contrast and it's blindingly obvious they can't pull the usual "both sides are the same / equally bad / etc". At least, you can't really claim to support the GOP because you want to do something about climate change, only that you don't think it's important or don't think it's happening.
Contrast this with a lot of tech issues, where you can throw up your hands and claim the whole system is fucked, and that both sides have their faults in roughly equal proportion. You're not forced to think about the consequences of supporting one party or the other as much.
Supporting environmentally friendly legislation is orthogonal to the economic concerns that divide the left and right. It's true that environmentalists are associated with the left in the US, but that's not true everywhere in the world.
And therein lies the problem. In the US, one cannot support politicians that will be amenable to reasonable, environmentally friendly legislation without embracing leftist economic ideologies as well. That said, once again I think HN is not the place to discuss or voice support for specific political views one way or the other. There are plenty of fact-based, scientific discussions to be had on this topic.
My point was that you were the first one to bring up any particular political affiliation. There are Republicans who support environmental protection, like John McCain in his 2008 bid for president. If the OP is conservative, he might follow the advice you were responding to by lobbying for changes to the Republican Party platform.
Got a good example of this? Every policy I've seen relating to reducing emissions involves higher taxes and redistribution of wealth by a bigger government.
Environmentally friendly legislation can be a bit more diverse but that doesn't really exist now, emissions is all people discuss.
The Chinese communist party is only recently starting to care about air pollution, and the Front National (France's far right party) has an environmental platform.
Historically, the Republican Party gave us the National Park System and the Clean Air Act, and Soviet officials thought green air around factories was a sign of progress.
Which politician is more likely to take steps helpful for climate change: (a) one who "claims" to be eco-conscious, or (b) one who thinks climate change is a hoax? Are you seriously telling me that a person who wants to do what they can for climate change should consider candidates (a) and (b) as equivalent, so far as climate change is concerned? Boggles my mind.
This is more political commentary, and the point of my comment was that this isn't the place for that. Also there are an infinite number of viewpoints on this subject in between those you outlined.
I'm not commenting pro or con on any politician. What I'm saying is that, _if_ someone wants to do what they can to fight climate change, voting for politicians who share their goals would be one thing they could do that would help. And it is, actually, a pretty important thing. That's just common sense.
There is a difference between supporting politicians who support changes to reduce carbon emissions and increase support for renewables and supporting politicians who pretend climate change does not exist or is not affected by us.
Those are both ways you can affect climate change.